


From The Other Side

by bondageluvr (haganenoheichou), maringue (orphan_account)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Multi, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:39:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5206205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/bondageluvr, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/maringue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi needs Erwin to remind him he's still alive after his past fears surface.</p>
<p>A collaboration one-shot about our broken soldiers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for working with me and polishing this idea into a work of art, haganenoheichou! <3

There had been no warning for it when it happened. He thought back months, attempting to seek out clues he was blindsided to in his state of anger. There had been nothing. No warning, no explainable reason whatsoever for this.

Levi was pulled away from his thoughts when Farlan moved off of the other man, who was lying prostrate on _his_ floor with his legs spread, bare and receiving. He turned around, his skin crawling.

There wasn’t much he could give Farlan, not here, in the Underground – but they could have had enough, all that this place had to offer, in fact; considering how far up on the totem pole they really were without the population actually being aware of it. Now, however, that was out of the question. There was a fire burning through the lining of his stomach and spreading up to his throat which twisted painfully when he attempted and failed to suppress the scorching anger.

“Wait! Levi!”

He ignored Farlan, hurrying down the steps back into the coal-black night, and running towards a dark alley nearby. He certainly didn’t want to hear the pleading in the man’s voice, the hurt, the sniveling. He could hear Farlan’s uneven steps, altered by the fact that he was still trying to pull his clothes back on as he chased after Levi.

“Levi!” He heard it coming from behind, the sound growing less audible. Good, he was gaining distance. He didn’t want to hear Farlan’s excuses, he didn’t want to listen, he didn’t want to know the reason for his indiscretion.

Levi pushed his sleeves up as he reached a familiar building and pulled himself up using a wide windowsill as leverage to reach the edge of the slanted roof. He climbed up, gaining footing, and ran faster than he had on the ground. He really could gain speed up here, closer to the surface.

He reached their cave, which opened a barred window to the world above. They had discovered this place together, just the two of them, wanting to find something that would have kept reminding them of their dream: to get out of this miserable place and live freely overground.

So he let it out, bleeding his anger and hurt into the scream as he kicked the crumbling earth on the wall of the collapsed space, his fists sending rock and dirt flying through the air.

His scream echoed in the open space forever – as long as it would take him to let all the pain out. His face was sweaty, his knuckles bloodied and torn, and his clothes beyond dirty, unsalvageable. He screamed his voice raw and hoarse until he heard a sniffle across the vast expanse of the cave, at the very entrance.

There were only two other people who ever came here.

“ _I_ ’ _m sorry!_ ”

There wasn’t anything he wanted to say to the man. He just wanted to be alone, wanted to not be himself, not one of _them_. He wanted to carve out this feeling and hand it to Farlan, the pitiful man whose nose was running and whose eyes were damp with tears. Levi didn’t want to keep this feeling. Not anymore, not again.

He looked up.

“Levi, you have to understand that it meant-,”

A solution that never occurred to him was thrown out of him, his body acting on its own as his fist made a mess of Farlan’s jaw. Levi jerked back right after, the restraint showing up too late, and tried to calm his heavy breathing. He managed to control the urge to beat the man to a pulp. He didn’t hear Farlan’s cry, didn’t hear anything anymore as his mind whirred and the nausea rose in his throat; while he fought back the memories that surged with another wave of hurt and anger.

“Go home, I’ll be there soon.”

It was an easy decision for him to make, and he knew from the way Farlan sobbed as he walked away that that was all they had left. Hurt and anger and the choice to let go rather than repair.

But all the while he kept thinking how they could have had it all.

***

Her eyes were wide, their dark tree-bark colour spread far against the sunlight that he blocked with his body as he climbed down from the carriage and looked at her. Her black hair flowed freely, cascading over her shoulders and beyond in wavy locks, and there was a crown of lace on top of her head where the veil dropped down to the ground to meet the hem of her gown. She looked radiant.

Erwin reached out to touch her, instinctively, but pulled his hand back and nodded instead, smiling at her as he let her recover from the shock of seeing him.

“You came.”

He nodded again and cleared his throat, wanting to say something but for some reason finding it impossible to seek out the right words. Instead, he looked around at the city backdrop and gestured at the church she was standing on the stairs of, ready to go in.

Marie met his eyes again, and he could see that they were glistening in the sunlight, making her look even more beautiful but wretched, somehow.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, climbing the small set of stairs up towards the entrance. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and Marie just laughed, her voice clear, falling and spilling like pearls.

“You didn’t startle me, Erwin,” she said, looking up and smiling all the while as she fixed her make-up with a few touches of the handkerchief that he noticed she didn’t offer to return. “I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all.”

He frowned, examining the shine on his boots instead of looking Marie in the eyes again. “I suppose I am not one you’d exactly call reliable.”

Erwin heard her disagree before a chime from the clocktower made her shuffle somewhat uncomfortably in her dress and he saw her hand before it came to touch his.

“Will you?”

She was holding out her arm and for a perverted moment he wished she had been asking him to take her along, away from here, to another place. But he knew it couldn’t be. He knew she had found someone like him, someone _better_ even, _better_ because that someone had chosen her.

Erwin took a deep breath and nodded, letting her see the bittersweet emotion on his face for a split-second before he smiled, the mask firmly in place when he kissed her fingers for the last time and walked her down the aisle after the heavy church doors swung open with an air of finality.

He stood beside Nile, saw Marie’s gaze fixed on his throughout the entire ceremony, he _felt_ the tear that escaped the corner of Nile’s eye as if it had been one of his own as Marie affirmed her love for another man. He applauded along with the rest of the congregation when Nile swept her in a loving kiss in full view of their friends and family.

Erwin wished them everlasting love and happiness, and ignored his own hurt and the frantically beating heart in his chest that was telling him to go back and change it all. He walked out of the church right after the ceremony, incapable of staying any longer. For them, for Marie and him, in this moment, it was over.

***

_I will follow you._

It happened without his permission. Invading his thoughts, consuming his attention, forcing him to have panicked nightmares of the other man dying between the teeth of a Titan, an Abnormal, sometimes a herd of smaller ones. He saw them ripping the Commander to pieces methodically over and over again in his head.

There were moments when his actions outside the Walls were fuelled by the fear, ice-cold and relentless, putting his Squad in jeopardy. Sometimes, the fear increased, when there were too many narrow escapes and barely-there performances.

He would get angry, blame his fellow Squad members, he would blame Erwin and his stupid tactics that weren’t enough for him. There was no predictability with the Titans. He should have know better.

“Levi?”

The question roused him from his musings, and all of it came back to him. His blood-soaked skin grating against the sweat-infused uniform he wore, his wind-stung cheeks reminding him of the pain of the saddle near his groin, and the calluses on his palms that came from creating huge piles of rotting monster corpses, the freshly opened marks of the manoeuvre gear all over his body. And then there was the voice that evoked the depth of feeling reserved for damnation and moments lived, never to be brought to the surface again.

His gaze rose to meet that of his Commander, the trust he had for the man lifting it despite the gritting of his teeth, despite the feeling of dread for intimacy and human contact that he had long forgotten that spread over his body like a disease, permeating every pore.

It was apparent the Commander didn’t receive many visitors in his private rooms. Not because of the surprise on the man’s face, not because he was hiding himself like some stupid teenager behind a shirt; but because the whole room was a heap of documents and books that consumed the left side of the bed, filled spaces on the floor that weren’t attributed to the path from the bed to the bathroom or desk or the door. One of these paths led to a window Levi had seen the Commander observing him through one or two times as he had trained.

Nevertheless, the interest, the spark of longing for intimacy and sensation other than having the clothes on his back or washing up filled his mind once again, making it impossible to ignore them. He was sure he was mad, sure he was destined to end up with a knife stuck in his throat, a laugh thrown in his face or spit in his eye, but he pushed away from the door he had been leaning against and crossed the room over to the Commander.

The Commander’s eyes were moving over Levi’s body, he could feel them pattern his skin with a burning trail as he closed the distance and pressed his fingers against the man’s chest, pushing away the obstructive fabric, and into the solid muscle until his whole palm was burning with the same sensation.

“I need this,” he whispered, his throat tight.

He was preparing for the blow, he was sure his instincts had abandoned him as he closed his eyes and waited for it to come.Then a hand, much bigger than his own, much more hard-skinned and rougher, came to lie over his and he breathed out. A touch like this, a touch so gentle, was not what he had expected at all.

“I’m sorry,” the man whispered, his breath hitching, “I can’t.”

Levi wanted. He wanted this more than he had wanted anything else after getting out of the Underground, after taking revenge on Isabel and Farlan.

“Is there someone?” he asked warily. He felt he couldn’t trust his voice.

Erwin’s face was drawn, his blank features controlled even as his breathing strained to keep its ragged pace. He shook his head, breaking free from Levi’s gaze as soon as he met his eyes, pupils blown wide in the dim light.

“Levi, there’s not a single thing I can give you that you want from me.”

He was wrong. He needed this, he had to feel a sensation other than blades digging into the flesh of a Titan or having a great shit.

“I need this,” he repeated, not letting go of the Commander when the man let his hand drop down. “Don’t tell me what I want. I _need_ this.”

Erwin’s face was tired and hair was matted with blood but there was nothing in the world that made Erwin seem anything else but a comfort, a safe haven for him to crash and burn until there was not a moment that wasn’t consumed by the sensation of being held and wanted and taken.

“I know I can’t talk you into it, I don’t want to,” he said, pressing into Erwin’s chest, peering at the man’s face that kept flickering between controlled anger and uncontrolled sadness. “I just need you to be there. I don’t want nothing much, just… let me be with you.”

So there it was, he had given as much as he could, enough to make Erwin consider, as he now did, his face back under control, his eyes closed and his chest expanded as he filled his lungs and held his answer inside until finally he melted into Levi’s touch. Strong arms wrapped around Levi tightly; so tightly that even if he had allowed himself to, he couldn’t have fallen to his knees as relief overtook his body.

That’s how he found himself, wrapped in a close embrace, in the arms of the man he trusted to be able to take away the fear by showing that there was a reason for all of this, that he was still alive. It was hard to remember that he was. Three hours of sleep a night, waking up to nightmares about loss, and his own twisted history of the terrors begotten in Underground, all of that was enough to make anyone break in the end.

He wasn’t aware how long they stayed there, inside that musty room, filled with a gigantic mess and their filthy stench of blood and lost battles. It didn’t bother him nearly as much as the loss of contact when he pulled away from the Commander and stepped back, giving the man space and time to gather himself before meeting his eyes for a brief moment.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Commander,” Levi said and placed a hand above his heart, touching the warm fabric, a reminder of the closeness, the restored calm within, before turning on his heel and exiting the room.

***

There it was again. The crippling fear of losing and leaving him in the dark, alone, to go on by himself, without someone to be scared for, someone to love and care about. He didn’t fear for his life, never for his own. But there was _someone_ to care about, someone he followed to the deepest pits of darkness and back again, moving forward even when his body couldn’t, lost even when his feet showed the way and alone, even though he walked through a crowd.

He shut himself away from everything: people, requests to congratulate and celebrate, and walked ahead, away from the noises that covered the fear, overpowering his ears and making it seem as if he were in a vacuum. Levi wanted to be pushed inside a room, a confined space, up to the roof, up on the edge of the Wall, somewhere he could let the fear come and cripple him right away, just for a second, a minute, a fleeting moment. The memory of Erwin’s embrace had his mind reeling, had his knees buckling and he fell to the floor, just as he reached the inside of the room the Commander had granted just for him.

The stone floor under his knees pressed into his bone just like the thigh-straps bore into his skin, letting blood through as they twisted fiber apart. He didn’t care as the twisted anguish choked him at his throat and brought bile up in rancid coughs, burning his insides just like Titans’ skin had burned his flesh.

“Shit,” he whispered as the feeling subsided and he rose to his knees and shaky feet, walking quickly to open a window to let fresh air in.

He was leaning out of the window, his face splashed with air thick with smoke from the chimneys that let out burning steam as the water was heated for baths all around the city for the soldiers who had returned. The door opened and Levi whirled around to see Erwin grimace at the stench of his sick.

He saw the Commander’s eyes linger on the puddle of acid and watery slime that had been his breakfast, and Levi felt shame shudder into him. The Commander looked up at his face, a frown etched onto his features as he sidestepped the puddle and went into the room and gestured at him with a nod.

“I wanted to make sure-,”

“Come here,” Levi instructed the Commander and reached out a hand that the man took hesitantly. He pulled Erwin to his chest, ignoring the ripeness of his sweat that lingered everywhere.

They met in a tight embrace, much like the last time, and tried to search for enough comfort from each other’s bodies with their clothed skin pressing tightly together. Even though the nausea had passed, Levi still couldn’t focus his thoughts properly and he quickly realised why, moving to unbutton Erwin’s shirt.

“Levi?”

“Wait, let me get this off,” he groaned, pleading in his mind for the man to not object.

His fingers threaded through soft hair on Erwin’s chest as he pushed the shirt back along with the uniform jacket, revealing a tangle of muscles and strength he was sure would ground him, bring him back to reality from his nightmarish terror that tried to grapple onto his senses, lingering there forever. He pushed into the hard body, rubbing his rough face against the chest, shoulders and below, as his hands travelled up and down the Commander’s arms. The sensation of naked skin against his own awakened arousal that circled from seemingly everywhere to reach his middle and made him moan.

Ignoring the subsidiary feeling, he focused on the calming effect of having someone enveloping him, telling him with a simple contact of skin and warmth that he was here, back _here_ , that there was no danger to Erwin, no danger to his life, no way for him to be hurt now that they were both safe and away from impending death.

Levi calmed down, his hands pulling the Commander to bend forward to reach his arms over and across his back, to reaffirm his presence, to ensure that he wouldn’t move, not now that Levi had him here, safe and alone. All to himself.

“Levi,” the man whispered, not letting him relax into his hold like last time, not allowing him the moment to let go of that nagging desire to be held and taken care of that lived at the back of his mind.

“Don’t talk.”

He wanted to just be here, to stay here forever, not to experience that feeling, that terrifying anguish again. He didn’t want to lose his grip on the calm that he could have, that feeling when the storm stopped and he could be content. It would be enough for him to do just as he’s told, to fight back and reach forward, wherever Erwin’s plans might take him.

Then, long after this, he would be able to let go completely; but now, in this moment, always right at the end of the terror, he needed this, he knew now. He had known after that first time that he would need for Erwin to let him have this peace. One moment of weakness that might make him strong enough to go again, to fight again for Erwin’s sake. But the man was nothing if not persistent, and Levi felt himself being pushed back.

And pulled back in.

It was almost a foreign touch by now, these lips on his, these hand cupping his head and bringing them closer, guiding them into an exchange Levi hadn’t expected. Now he could feel arousal return like a flood, barrelling through and casting aside all reasonable thinking as he felt finally alive, charged and living.

Rooted to the spot, he held onto the lifeline tightly, pulling Erwin to him, giving in to the pleasure, the oddity of it all, as the new reality sunk in. Levi realised this was what he had wanted all along and behind that shadow of a doubt he had always coveted, that thought he’d never have this again, this lust for someone, this love for the man, he forgot why it didn’t matter that he was betting all he had on a kiss.

There it was, pumping in his chest, fast and furious. It was like fire lit in a storm. It burned hot in his body as he touched Erwin, and let himself be touched by him.

He felt Erwin’s hand going for him, going where he most wanted, and he pushed the man back, keeping their connection as he guided Erwin to his bed. He undressed when they pulled apart, nodding for Erwin to do the same, and climbed on top of the man, his thighs, although bloodied and worn, spreading around Erwin’s painlessly as their pleasure took over.

Levi watched the Commander, whose head was twisted to the side. He watched him wretched and vulnerable when he felt how he pulsed against his hand, feeling himself twitch with every sound Erwin let out, each more strained than the one before. He saw the man come undone under his manipulations, savouring the strange sense of pride that overtook him when he saw Erwin’s eyes roll back into their sockets and his body convulse beneath his own.

While Erwin was still delirious from the orgasm, clearly unfocused, he reached blindly for Levi and twisted him painfully. Erwin brought him down and to his side, turning enough so he could touch him easier. Levi felt a strange, out-of-body sensation when Erwin reached over and kissed his mouth, his large hand spreading his slick on his shaft, enough to make him groan to go harder.

He didn’t last long, barely a few seconds, after Erwin moved from his mouth and breathed into his neck, harsh, his tongue tangled in a curse. He felt his muscles pull, his body shaking, much like after a strenuous workout, relieving tension. There was something _there,_ something he had found, under his skin.

Levi opened his eyes, looking up at the beamed ceiling, smelling the stench in the room for the first time since his body had allowed his mind to take over again.

“That’s disgusting,” he muttered, wiping the corners of his mouth. Erwin sat up on the bed and Levi followed him with his eyes, watching him reach for his clothes, pulling each piece of blood- and sweat-ruined clothing on one by one in complete silence, not acknowledging him or his comment.

“Erwin.”

He flinched at the sound of his own voice. It sounded needy, pathetic, like a lovelorn girl talking to a soldier who was going away to surely die, and suddenly he didn’t want the Commander to hear him, much preferring to keep the memory of their coupling intact.

“I’m sorry,” the Commander said and Levi sat up too, looking at the man’s back as Erwin looked out the window into distance, a slight breeze catching the few strands of hair that hung messily off his forehead. Levi swallowed, knowing the man was talking about getting too close, wanting to save whatever distance they had now by pulling himself away from what had happened. “I’ve never crossed that line with someone, Levi. You have to understand that.”

“I’m fine,” Levi argued instantly and pulled his shirt from the messed-up sheets to get dressed as well, feeling strangely outranked by Erwin’s fully clothed form.

Erwin sighed deeply and shook his head, turning around. “You’ve misunderstood. I know what… what this is. I’m not a stranger to it.”

Levi frowned, rounding onto the man and glancing out the window before letting reality set in. Erwin would never give in to him and what he wanted.

“Fine, then. We’re done here, yeah?”

He wanted nothing more than to scour himself up with soap and hot water for a few hours, before he’d let sleep take him in his tiny bathroom space. Training could take this anger he now felt for Erwin, standing there pulled together, pretending like none of this had affected him, like there was no reason why they couldn’t go wash up together and return to this, take more of each other, as much as they could, while they still had the time. So he let Erwin off the hook, nodding to him once more as the man walked to his door and paused to look back with a blank look.

The next day Levi pushed himself further, feeling a new sense of determination in his limbs as he let the manoeuvre gear take him to his target. He sunk his blades deep into the necks of the Titans that were thrown his way by Hanji and the new recruits. He caught a glimpse of a young woman, probably in her late teens, startled when she let go of the rope a second too late, her hands rubbed raw by the rough fibers as he jumped on the faux-Titan’s neck and severed its head off cleanly. He didn’t bother to apologize.

He felt a little better by the time afternoon rolled around, having taken a long bath. He ate quietly in the mess hall, mercifully left to his own devices and silently thankful to Hanji who was blabbering to everyone about his bad mood.

By nightfall he had come to a conclusion. This was something he could get over. There was that feeling under his skin now, something Erwin’s touch had restored in him, something that had been gone for a long time. Ever since Farlan had stopped those feelings, that _one_ feeling, the sensation of fire in his belly. He had gotten enough reassurance, at least enough for next time.

***

They rode through the rain together. Erwin couldn’t possibly begin to understand what the men and women following him were feeling. He wasn’t an empathetic kind of leader. He was the rock that pressed his people against the hard place – the Titans, the bane of their existence; he was the one who dragged them out of the confines of their barracks and out here, into the open. He was the one whose very thoughts and words commandeered hundreds to die.

The burden was always there, chilling, cold as ice, and heavy. So heavy, in fact, that sometimes he would have to wake in the middle of the night just to throw up over the edge of his bed in an attempt to rid himself of this feeling. So heavy that sometimes lifting the spoon of gruel to his mouth every morning was a chore. So heavy that whenever he saw the accusing glares of the fallen soldiers’ loved ones, he wanted nothing more than be crushed underneath the monolith of his guilt.

He could feel Levi’s unwavering presence at his elbow. Slightly farther away, there he was, small and brooding, his eyes set on the unknown beyond the scope of human vision. He followed Erwin blindly without even attempting to see. He didn’t ask Erwin what he saw either. He didn’t put Erwin into the position of having to answer with a downcast shrug and a sigh. Because he understood perfectly well that Erwin didn’t know. Erwin didn’t know what he saw; and even if he had known, he would have never been able to understand.

Erwin appreciated Levi in a way that was unique between the two of them. He couldn’t quite place his finger on the exact moment when the thug had turned into the closest person Erwin had in this world. But it had happened; and now both of them were experiencing the world through this double-sided lens: one side was Erwin’s, the other Levi’s. Integral but never destined to meet.

The Titans came into view and for some reason, the memory of Levi’s thighs wrapped around his waist swam to the forefront of his mind, blocking out the terrified gasps of the younger, less experienced soldiers. He felt Levi’s resolve harden somewhere several feet away from him and he fought the urge to glance back at the face he’d kissed.

The icy burden of murder unraveled in his stomach, pooling into something deeper, darker, yet warmer.

Erwin’s mouth spasmed into a smile as he rode onward to face the Titans, once again. Perhaps he would die today.

Perhaps Levi would.

Perhaps all of them would die.

The rain no longer stung with its cold. Levi had set fire to the droplets. They burned Erwin’s face, making him feel like pushing forth. Just one more time.


End file.
